


Put Me Back Together

by DachOsmin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fade to Black, Grief/Mourning, Light BDSM, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 13:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Leia glances at his shaking hands, at the places his shirt clings heavy with sweat. “I need you whole, Poe.”





	Put Me Back Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).



It doesn't hit Poe at first.

Everything is too fast and too loud: a mess of fear-laced sweat and the whine of blaster fire. And besides, every inch of him is laser-focused on getting the Millenium Falcon into the air and out of atmo, engaging the thrusters in a mad dance as the ship jerks back and forth, just barely avoiding the flashes of the imperial cannons.

Even once they’re out of atmo Poe doesn’t have the time to reflect or take stock: there’s TIE fighters and ion beams to dodge; there’s curses to spit and orders to shout as he fights with the controls to wrench two hundred thousand pounds of metal through maneuvers that are a hairsbreadth away from tearing the ship apart. There’s a screaming match going on behind him about which coordinates to jump to. He can’t tell who’s yelling or where they want to go beneath the sound of the warning klaxons and the clang of stray items bouncing around the ship because no one had had the time to tie anything down.

The Star Destroyer in front of him is looming larger and larger as he yanks the ship starboard to avoid a spray of debris. “I’m going to need a decision, folks,” he yells, not looking away from the grim tableau in front of him.

Finn is saying something and Lieutenant Connix is overriding him, and then Chewbacca cuts in with a sharp groan and renders it all unintelligible.

There’s another round of ion blasts charging up on the side of the destroyer. Poe grits his teeth. “Any time now!”

Suddenly the General is leaning over his shoulder. “Target for Delta Sector, coordinates 3092 by 5820,” she says, quietly.

It’s the General, so he doesn’t stop to weigh the action, just punches the numbers in and yanks the jump lever and then everything is smearing into stars.

***

The jump goes smoothly, spitting them out in a blank patch of space, worlds away from any other living soul. There’s nothing here. It’s silence and darkness and cold.

Poe falls back against his seat with loose-limbed relief. They made it.

And then he turns around to grin at the others, and he finally realizes how few they are. Too few.

There are maybe a dozen people crowded into the cockpit and the hallway right outside. And that’s it. That’s everybody that’s left. The entire rebellion, reduced to less than a wing of fighters, all alone in a tiny tin can swallowed up in the vacuum of space.

“Chewbacca, take the controls,” he says. His mouth feels dry as he stumbles out of the cockpit, suddenly exhausted.

***

They float between the stars, aimless. As Poe walks the deserted halls of the ship, he keeps listening for all the other voices that should be there. But they're gone, and the absence throbs like a migraine. He won't hear them ever again because they’re dead- Paige and all the rest. They’re gone, their bodies ground into stardust against the black.

And he’s alive.

He hadn’t felt any guilt in the aftermath of most of the battles he’s fought in, even the ones where many, many pilots died. Oh, he'd mourned them: he’d cursed the empire and poured out a shot to the fallen heroes and then gotten on with drawing up plans to avenge them. Each and every death had felt righteous then, like they'd meant something. He’d been sure of it.

Now he can't tell.

The guilt worries at him like a toothache as he sits down to eat a meal with the rest of the survivors. They are few enough that they can all sit around a single table. Everyone’s voice is soft. No one meets his eyes.

Poe hunches over his plate, staring ahead without seeing anything. The guilt shifts oily in his stomach when he tries to eat or drink. He pushes his food around his plate, taking a single bite when he sees the General is staring at him. It sticks in his throat, bitter as he chokes it down.

Every time he closes his eyes he sees the faces of people that aren’t there. He can still hear the screams.

He thinks he might be going mad.

***

It's night when he finally breaks down. Of course it's always night here: no light has ever reached this lonely patch of space except the flicker of the Falcon’s beacons blinking in binary.

Rather it’s night in that it's one of those arbitrary hours that everyone has decided to shun in favor of their beds, and sleep.

Poe, however, can’t sleep. They are few enough people on the ship that everyone gets their own room. It’s not a blessing. He’s used to barracks, to the sounds of a dozen other pilots shifting in their sleep around him. Here, the only sound is his own ragged breathing. The room is too small; the bed is too hard. He’s soaked in sweat and freezing from it. It feels like he's choking in the sheets.

It’s too much. He pulls himself out of bed and stumbles down the passageway to the galley. He leans over the sink, his fingers clenching the counter top hard enough to dent. Supporting himself with one hand, he turns the sink on with the other and dashes freezing water on his face. He stares at his reflection in the polished steel of the backsplash, watching as the drops of water bead on his nose and trickle down his collarbone to soak his shirt. 

Behind him in the mirror, movement.

He tears around, grabbing wildly at his hip for his blaster. There’s a spike of panic when he realizes it’s not there- he’d left it by the side of his bunk, stupid, stupid. He raises his hands into fists, ready for the blow-

The General coughs delicately. "Are you well?”

He forces his hands down at his sides with a shuddered breath. “Yes, ma’am. Just… couldn’t sleep.”

“Mmm.” She glances at his hands, at the places his shirt clings heavy with sweat. “I need you whole, Poe.”

He tries for a cocksure grin. “I am whole.”

“Mmm,” she says again. She pauses a moment, and then she casually moves her hand towards him.

A violent flinch rips through his body before he can help himself.

She starts to pull her hand back but thinks better of it. She regards him for a moment and then, with agonizing gentleness, reaches out to cup his cheek.

Her hand is warm against his skin; he can just feel the faint beat of her heart. He can't decide whether to pull away or lean into her touch, so he just stands frozen. He can’t meet her eyes.

“Whole, Poe?” she asks softly.

He expects to hear recrimination. But there is none, only gentleness. And- pity?

And that, of all things, he cannot take. “Please no- I can't…“

She tilts his head up so that he's forced to meet her eyes. “You can't what?”

He doesn’t know. He has no idea what he’s saying or what any of it means. All he knows is he can’t look away from her.

She’s quiet for a moment. And then: “I see. So that's how it is.”

“Don’t know what you mean, ma’am.” The words sound fake even to him.

“Poe, I need you whole right now.”

“I am…” he whispers. It feels like he’s begging.

She continues as if she hadn't heard him. “I need you whole, not… whatever this is,” she says with a vague gesture. “I can help you. I can give you what you need. My quarters are at the end of the hall.”

He feels a curious lightness in his chest. “Is that an order, ma’am?”

She shakes her head. “No.” She takes a deep breath. “But if you trust me, come.”

And with that she turns and walks out of the kitchen without looking back, as silently as she came.

***

He waits a moment, and then follows her.

It isn’t really a choice. Or rather, it’s a choice he made years ago.

He still remembers the day in question. Ben- or Kylo, or whatever the fuck he’s calling himself these days- had just gone rogue.

It would be enough to drive any parent mad, and talk around the base had been that Leia’s grief was the kind that leveled mountains. Speculation had run wild: she was going to surrender to him. She was going to disappear to live out her days on some backwater planet. She was going to die.

But then a few scant hours later she’d emerged from her quarters and called an assembly. And there, all alone in the shadow of her son’s betrayal, she had faced the crowd and told them she would never surrender.

Poe had been standing at the back of the crowd, watching her. As she’d spoke he’d seen the iron line of her mouth and the fire in her eyes and known, in his heart of hearts, that he would follow her anywhere, to the ends of the galaxy and beyond.

Compared to that, the walk down the hall to her rooms seems a small thing.

He rests his head against the lintel and knocks twice on the door. There’s no response at first and he lets himself drift, anchored by the cool touch of metal against his cheek.

A moment later the door opens with a soft whir. She stands beside the lintel and gives him a searching look he can’t decipher before gesturing for him to enter.

He steps in, waits for her to shut the door behind him, and follows her as she walks over to sit on the edge of her bed. He considers sitting next to her, or there’s a chair in the corner- but no, that somehow seems like the wrong thing to do. He plants himself at parade rest in front of her, and waits.

She studies him in silence.

The silence grows, and with it his discomfort. He’s on the verge of speaking anyway- to say what, he isn’t sure, probably some perfectly inane comment about the décor or god forbid, the weather- when she finally sighs and rubs at her temple with the pad of her thumb. “This has been rough for you, hasn’t it?”

He thinks, for an awful moment, that she’s going to make him talk about his feelings, like some terrible therapy session. There’s nothing he wants to do less than that. He takes a shaky breath. “When you said you know what I need…”

She looks amused for a moment. “I like to think I know you rather well by now. Well enough to know what you need.”

“And what do I need?”

She just looks at him for a second. And then it’s like a switch has been flipped: she’s not Leia anymore, but the General. There’s a violence in the stillness of her body, like the coiling of a spring. She juts her chin out, and when she speaks it’s with the cold certainty of command. “Kneel.” Her eyes dark beneath the fall of her lashes

The word hits him like blaster fire. He feels as a reverberation in the marrow of his bones. “And if I don’t?” he manages to say.

She shrugs, and suddenly she’s Leia again. “You can get up and walk out of this room and we won’t talk about this again. But if you stay…” she pauses, and her eyes flash. “I expect _obedience,_ Poe.”

His mouth is suddenly very dry. “Yes ma’am,” he whispers.

She nods, like she expected him to cave all along. “Then kneel.”

He could never deny her anything anyway, but this is an order he _wants_ to obey. With a shaky breath he slides down onto his knees. He feels boneless, like he’s made of water; he puts his hands down on the floor in front of him to steady himself.

“Poe Dameron,” she says with a dispassionate air, like she’s reading his name off a datapad. “Where to begin?”

He doesn’t answer. He can guess how this works, even if they’ve never done it before. He’s not going to speak unless she asks him to.

Her clipped exhale might mean she approves. “Proud. Hot-headed. Impulsive.”

He bows his head, lets the words wash over him.

“You were reckless with the lives you were meant to protect. You disobeyed a direct order. You orchestrated a mutiny.” She speaks in a cool, even tone; neither her voice nor her face betrays the least hint of emotion.

Poe thinks he could die from this: this cold dispassionate listing of every way he’s failed her. Each charge weighs heavier and heavier, until he feels like he’s suffocating beneath the weight of them.

Finally she comes to a pause, and he dares to think it might be open. But no, just as he looks up to meet her eyes and sees a flicker of some hidden emotion in her eyes, she speaks again. “You’ve disappointed me, Poe.”

That hurts worse than all the others combined, and he can’t help the cry that breaks from his lips.

Suddenly her hand is there, cool against his cheek. He holds himself very still, unsure of the rules- unsure what he’s allowed to have. Certainly, after everything he’s done, everything she’s reminded him of, he doesn’t _feel_ worthy. But she was right that he was impulsive, and he can’t help but need more from her, and so after a second ticks past he leans into her touch, aching from the press of her fingers against his skin.

She doesn’t pull away.

She needs this too, he realizes.

How many people has she seen die in the past month? Deaths she was helpless to prevent?

What is it like to be a general- a woman in control- that suddenly has control over nothing: neither the fates of the people she loves, nor her own fate?

His heart aches for her. He turns his head against the cradle of her hand, presses a kiss into the hollow of her palm.

She lets him rest there for a moment, and then pulls away. “Shirt off, Poe.”

He’s reaching for the hem of his sleep shirt before she’s finished speaking. In his haste to obey her he gets caught in one of his sleeves, but then he’s pulling himself loose and tossing the shirt to the floor.

There’s a small smile on her lips. “Very good,” she says.

He wants to please her, more than anything. If she asked him to step out of an airlock he would do it, with a smile on his face.

“Now your pants,” she says.

He has to stand up this time. His fingers are shaky as he undoes the clasps. The fabric pools to the floor and he steps out of the pile. He doesn’t wear underwear with his sleeping clothes.

Her eyes are heavy on him. “Good.” He feels those words like warmth in his bones. He could be drunk on them.

“Come here,” she beckons.

He goes without a second thought. Anything to have her praise him again. He feels light and buzzy, like he’s floating outside of himself.

She reaches out to rest a hand on his chest and he shivers at the warmth of it. He thinks he can feel her heartbeat through the pads of her fingers; he thinks he could drown in it.

He looks down through his eyelashes and sees her watching him. Her eyes are dark. And maybe it’s the high of the absence of pain, or the high of her praise, or just the same old recklessness of a pilot- but he _wants_ , and so he dares to hold her gaze and lean in, and press a chaste kiss at the corner of her mouth.

And she doesn’t pull away.

***

He does eventually make it back to his own room, stumbling and drunk on the high of her touch. he collapses into his bunk, every limb suffused with a warm glow. His eyes shut as he hits the mattress. And for the first time in a long time, his sleep is dreamless.

**Author's Note:**

> *Shows up 15 minutes late with starbucks*  
> Yo I heard you liked meditations on mortality! Cheers!


End file.
